


into the darkness

by WonderBoy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Could be read as Allurance, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I'm so sorry I swear I don't mean to make all Lance focused things sad, Implied Time Skip, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Near Future, Post-Episode: s06e01 Omega Shield, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, but its not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderBoy/pseuds/WonderBoy
Summary: Dying feels a lot like silence





	into the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be updating Get Some but chapter 3 and I are currently disagreeing on direction and the opening paragraph of this came to me last night as I was falling asleep and it took all of my self control to put off writing the rest until this morning.
> 
> I've wanted to see somethings explore what happened to Lance in season 6 a little more because most of what I've seen has handled it in a joking manner, which is fine because I honestly didn't even realize what had happened until after I was done watching the season and saw stuff on tumblr, but now that I've had some time to dwell on it, and with season 7 coming up so soon, I apparently needed to get it off my chest. 
> 
> Anyways...this is sad but hopefully ends on a good enough note that its not /too/ sad.

Dying feels a lot like silence. Dying feels like a lot of things, all at once, and simultaneously, nothing. Lance remembers a weightless sensation, an out of body experience in total darkness, but at the same time there’s pressure surrounding him-pushing him in an unknown direction until something gives. He’s scared to know what would have happened if something gave, if he gave in.

He wonders if Shiro remembers death in the same way. His essence was saved while his body was whisked away, but Lance was the opposite. For a moment, just his body remained accessible on their plane while his essence traveled to somewhere unknown. He wonders, but he is afraid to know the answer.

The full effect, the full truth of what happened, doesn’t hit him right away. When he wakes up in Allura’s arms, and can see through the glare of her helmet tears gathering on her curled lashes, he knows she’s saved him from something he could not have escaped on his own. But the truth, that for a moment he was dead, sits in the back of his mind, unacknowledged.

He feels strange for a while, out of place and subdued. The others noticed something was wrong, but they didn’t ask. Shiro, or whoever he was then, had been lost in his own head, focused on something the others couldn’t understand. And Pidge would let him come to her long before she tried to force something out of him unless he interrupted their work. And he didn’t. Hunk worried over him, as he usually did, but when he tried to ask what was wrong, he never mentioned that time, as if he had already forgotten it.

Lance wonders if Allura told everyone else what had happened, what she had to do, but he doesn’t ask.

Memories of death come to him in waves.

A shock drenches him in a cold sweat. A bright light freezes him in place until something else startles him out of his surprise.

He finds a white strand of hair in his bangs. And then a few more in the following days. He asks Coran about hair dye.

Memories of death come to him in his sleep.

He floats through something dark and thick. Like oil, it slows his movements, weighs him down, suffocates him as he tries to find surface. He can’t see anything but the suggestion of light from the corner of his eye, just out of focus, just out of reach. He wakes up gasping for air, wrenching off his sleep mask and clawing at the wall until light flickers on. His night clothes feel like they’re strangling him despite the open neckline and the blankets twisted around his legs are like shackles. He twists and fights and throws himself around until he’s standing in the middle of the room in nothing but his boxers, heaving, either from the effort or the fear. Even the artificial gravity holding him to the floor of the castle feels like too much pressure, though he had never noticed its effects before.

But the idea of lifting off and _floating_ again keeps him clinging to solid ground.

He wakes cradled in someone’s arms. He sees Allura with her beautiful curls and glittering eyes, wondering what went wrong. He sees Lotor, as he was before and after the quintessence poisoned him. Sometimes he looks friendly, kind, as if he too will mourn the loss of Lance, but other times his grin is wicked, all teeth and malice, like he had orchestrated it all. Shiro asks if he’s okay, but Lance cannot answer no matter how he strains, and… _not_ -Shiro’s Galran arm grows hot under him until his whole being _burns._ Hunk and Pidge are together often, Hunk cradling him when Pidge cannot while they talk over his head of ways they can save him, of how the lions can help, they never stop long enough notice he’s there. Keith, other Keith, little Keith, before his growth away from the rest of Voltron and his scar and his fight with Shiro asks Lance questions he can’t answer, about how they can be a team without him.

When he wakes in his mother’s arms, he swears he can feel real tears falling on his cheeks and smell the thick aura of spices that always surrounded her. She speaks in rapid Spanish, but his brain can’t catch up until she demands through wrenching sobs “ _Why did you ever leave?_ ”

After that, Lance doesn’t sleep. He dozes around the others, or in common spaces, but he refuses to let the heavy pull of a deeper sleep ever take him. At night he paces or explores or trains. He recites his favorite movies and books and anything else he can think of to himself in Spanish until he swears the words will never fade from his mind and the next time he sees his mother he will a _bsolutely_ understand her, and not just her anguish. He dyes his hair.

His reactions are slower and he’s shorter with the team, but he strives for normalcy as much as possible, so they do the same, skirting around his strange behavior with worries of their own. They stop on planets they’ve helped in the past to rest and regroup and check on their efforts, and it’s on one of these trips that the answers are finally riddled out of him.

The Olkari are in mourning when they arrive. They welcome Voltron with open arms and care for them, humoring Pidge and Hunk’s never-ending questions and helping the two to create a new arm for Shiro but the whole population is subdued. A sickness came into the forest, slowly killing part of the lush green and their people alike.

“We are deeply connected to our world,” Ryner reminds them as she shows them the damaged forest, trees twisted dark and mangled, the ground cracked and uneven under their feet. “We believe in death we return to help heal what we have used and taken in our lives, but still we feel the loss in our community, especially when we also see our world suffering with us.”

Lance places a hand to one of the broken trees, thinking of his failed attempt to commune with the living trees to help in their efforts against the Galra the last time they had visited. He feels closer now to the twisted, dark branches than he ever did to the thriving ones. “I just remember darkness,” he says to himself. “Returning to the world would be nice. Maybe if it hadn’t happened in space.”

When he turns away from the tree, Ryner has stopped speaking, but the group hasn’t moved on. They all stand frozen, watching him.

“You...remember?” Keith asks. His brow is furrowed, like the words are foreign to him.

Behind him, Lance sees the realization dawn on Allura. Her expression changes in an instant. Her hands fly to cover her mouth and he knows if he was closer he could see the tears gathering on her eyelashes all over again. “Oh Lance,” she whispers. It sounds like an apology.

Understanding dawns slowly on the others, Hunk who had been outside with them, had seen the blast and heard his com go silent, and a moment later Pidge who had been further from the event but present still.

Keith takes a step closer to him, his expression darkening even more. “What are you talking about?”

Lance feels his long spread exhaustion setting in. They had been on the move all morning and his body and mind were desperate for a rest. It’s the most dangerous time for him to rest, he’s more likely to fall asleep for real when he’s like this.

“It’s okay,” he waves it off. “Allura brought me back. Nothing to worry about. We should keep moving.”

He steps away from the tree, towards Ryner, hoping she will continue her tour but Keith reaches for him, hand wrapping around his wrist until Lance feels like his grip might bruise even through his suit.

“Keith,” Shiro warns as Keith yanks him, forcing Lance to turn back towards him.

The world spins as Lance is pulled, tilting out of focus and back again. The edges of his vision blur.

“What hap-”

 _“No,”_ Lance wants to plead. “ _Anything but this.”_ But the darkness creeps up on him.

He wakes on a bed not his own. He doesn’t recognize his surroundings, but Allura sits beside him. Tear tracks are stained on her cheeks, but her lashes are free of them. One hand rests in his hair. He cannot see, but he imagines she sees what he’s been hiding, the white to match her own, to match Shiro’s, that’s been slowly over taking him.

“I thought I was fast enough,” she whispers. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were fast enough,” he reassures her. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

She shakes her head, but doesn’t argue with him. “You need to rest more,” she says, pulling away from him. “You’re exhausted.”

He reaches for her hand before she can move away. “Please,” he begs. “I can’t.”

She squeezes his hand until it hurts, as if she’s trying to reassure herself of something, but he doesn’t let go until she says, “The others want to check on you too.”

Hunk blubbers when he sees him. Lance cries too. This time when he’s cradled in his arms, he knows he’s awake because he can wrap his arms around Hunk too, and hold him close. Hunk can hear him when he tells him that he’s there now. Pidge talks about the progress they’ve made on Shiro’s arm while Lance slept. She pretends the tears aren’t falling from her eyes, so he pretends too, until she throws herself over his chest.

“Say something next time, stupid.” She sobs.

He holds her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. It isn’t a promise, but it's close enough, for now.

Keith sits at the end of his bed and stares.

“You died.” He says.

“I guess.” Lance replies.

“And no one knew.”

“I guess.” He replies, quieter.

“Is that why you haven’t been sleeping?”

Lance looks at the ceiling, high and arched above him. The twisting beams that make up the ceiling remind him of tree branches.

“I’m scared,” He finally admits, even quieter still. He wonders if Keith even heard. He wished he didn’t hear his own confession. He hates it.

“We’re all scared,” Keith finally says. “It’s…easier together.”

“You’re one to talk,” Lance quips, but he quirks a smile until Keith smiles back.

Shiro is the last to come visit him. For a while, they sit in silence. Lance thinks he must be disappointed with him. He deserves it, he supposes. For the risks he put on the team.

“Before I realized what Black had done, and the access I still had to the lions through the astral plane,” Shiro says. Lance listens, but the way his eyes look out towards the horizon, makes it feel almost like he’s intruding on a memory. “I just remember a lot of darkness, and something pushing…or maybe pulling me towards something.”

Lance feels small, and his voice even more so, when he asks, “Did you give in?”

Shiro meets his eye, and Lance realizes they’re different than before, both befores really, his eyes. But also, the two of them. All of them.

“Almost.” Shiro admits. “Did you?”

“I don’t think I had a chance,” Lance whispers. His throat feels tight, but his chest feels hollow, like he’s emptying it of something heavy. “But I’m scared that I might have. If I had the chance. And what would have happened.”

Shiro looks at the ceiling, eyes tracing the same twisted branches Lance picked out. “Which one scares you more?”

Lance closes his eyes, but he still feels the prick of tears in the corners of his eyes. “The first one.”

Shiro’s human hand finds Lance’s on the bed and holds tight, grounding him.

“Rest, Lance. And when you wake up, and you will wake up, we will all still be here.”

Memories of death fade in months and years

Dying feels a lot like silence. But he isn’t quite sure what that means anymore. Dying feels like a lot of things. But that doesn’t scare him quite so much, after the war.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Feel free to come yell at me, request new things, or just stalk the progress of other fics on [tumblr](http://thathopelessromantic.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/wonder_romantic?lang=en)!
> 
> And thanks for reading! <3<3


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